the men they couldn't shave

In 2009, The Norwegian band The Men They Couldnâ€™t Shave suddenly found themselves in a place where the sun was shining down on them. Mr. Tom Waits had listened to one of the bandâ€™s songs through an international songwriting competition in Nashville. Mr. Waits was in the jury and the boys in The Men They Couldnâ€™t Shave were picked out to the final round among 15.500 contributors in the competition as one out of the Scandinavian acts. The band received honorable mention for the song â€œMost of my dimeâ€.
One thing leads to another, and now The Men They Couldnâ€™t Shave get air time on the radio in several countries â€“ including the United States of America.
But now all that matters is the bandâ€™s new box set â€œItâ€™s Just Restlessnessâ€ â€“ a compilation of 29 brand new songs and a booklet that adds to the picture and even explains what this band is about. This box set is a genuine fingerprint that shows where the founders of the style of the Nordicana are at in their 10th year of existence. A potent compilation of songs from the prairie and the big city.
About the box set:
Imagine that you are stopping in a dusty and sleepy old town out on the prairie. The town is just waiting for the sunset in order to wake up. A stray dog is slumbering in the shadow of a beat up car full of rust and a lack of paint. A man is walking the backstreets with a stack of pancakes in his hands. A parking lot queen with the tightest jeans you ever saw is sitting on the hood of her red Corvette, and she is looking for a young guy whoâ€™s eager to play an adult game of lust. Further down the street, a ghostlike man walks away with a guitar strapped to his back. An armadillo is searching the trashcans in the back alley but trots along down the road when it realizes thereâ€™s nothing to eat out here.
A worn down Ford Mustang is parked outside the only bar in this town. Inside the bar, a man is putting quarters in the old jukebox in the corner. An old country song can be heard. A polyester gangster is leaning against the bar. He spits out a few bad words with his British accent when he hears the country song. He curses the man putting coins in the jukebox and his name is Tony Falsettoâ€¦
The jukebox turns silent, but soon we can hear a record fall down and the pick up licks the vinyl. A guitar can be heard and soon a Fender telecaster invites the crowd in the bar to a party containing a life lived to the fullest and 29 songs to prove it. Highway tales and barroom stories. Itâ€™s just restlessness. Thatâ€™s all there is to get high on in this town.
This is the universe where The Men They Couldnâ€™t Shave roam. A band founded in Norway, but the bandâ€™s tales are deeply rooted in New Mexico and Albuquerque where the founder of the band lived for many years and is still a regular sight in the city.
The band is ready to fill that old jukebox with 29 new songs and the songs are fingerprints from the Norwegian and New Mexican plains. Check them out and maybe youâ€™ve come across one or two of the characters on this album.